With priest, stories
or incompletely handed down from generation to generation, or simply documented drily and succinctly in criminal records or proceedings of the Inquisition tribunal.
Bonello describes how, in 1744, Deli Manset, a slave working at the Order’s bakery, made overt advances to a young clerk, Alessio Lauron. On being rejected, Manset brandished a knife. He was hanged publicly that very day, by direct order, without trial.
In 1702, 31-year-old Anna Zammit from Żebbuġ, who enjoyed a reputation of a living saint, ended up in front of the Inquisitor’s tribunal accused of a bisexual relationship with the priest Don Bartolomeo Bonnici and with his sister, the nun Suor Rosaria.
“Zammit was charged with having intimacy with both, together and separately, caressing, masturbating and touching the intimate parts of her body with those of Don Bartolomeo and with Rosaria. Anna justified herself that those threesomes would free them from the evil passion of lust.
“Suor Rosaria, on her part, said she had such unshakeable faith in Anna’s sanctity that it did not occur to her that they were doing anything sinful,” Bonello writes.
The Inquisition had to deal with another case of lesbian ardour in 1755. Anna Vassallo from Balzan was concurrently having sex with three unmarried women, Catarina ta’ Navarina, from Valletta, Vittoria, daughter of Giuseppe ta’ Misbalna, also from Balzan, and Maria known as ta’ Ittruscia.
She had been told that such ‘dishonest touchings’ were not sinful and so saw no reason to stop her same-sex practices.
‘GOOD OlD Days Of The GheTTOs’
The book tackles the haunts that gave queer identities a safe place in post-war Malta, namely in Valletta’s Strait Street and Floriana’s Balzunetta.
Author Joseph Chetcuti, in his chapter on ‘The Wasteland: Homosexuals in Malta during the 1970s and 1980s’, mentions how the withdrawal of the British Navy left the bars in these areas bereft of their habitual clientele, causing them to close and leaving queer performers without a home.
“The good old days of the ghettos were fast disappearing. The servicemen were gone. The cabarets, bars, brothels and restaurants lost their best patrons” and as the sites that had offered shelter and some anonymity faded, foreign drag artists looked to greener pastures for work.
a mIlesTOne fOR The lGBTIQ+ COmmunITy?
The book also describes the ongoing struggle of the LGBTIQ+ community to achieve recognition against the backdrop of an island-nation succumbing to rapid changes on every front, whether social, economic, cultural or environmental.
“LGBTIQ+ rights, though hardwon, often feel insecurely built on shifting sands, vulnerable to erosion by the currents of political change and societal attitudes,” Buhagiar said.
Especially in these times where political sympathies in Europe swing ever more towards the far right, vigilance against the tide of regression is of the essence, Buhagiar warned.
“We should learn from what history has taught us: that by celebrating diversity and fostering open conversations, societies can continue to dismantle discriminatory structures and create spaces where all individuals can live an authentic life.
“It is not hard or difficult to be different. Only people make it so.”